My Virtual Mystery Book Tour

I never realized how much work was involved in planning a virtual book tour for my soon-to-be-released senior sleuth novel, A Village Shattered. First you have to find writers who will host your blog and hope that they receive at least 50 hits a day so that the word really gets out there. I didn’t ask and don’t really care how many hits they get each day because online promotions can compensate for sites yet to be discovered.

Next, you have to plan a schedule that incorporates interviews, book reviews and articles to please the reading public. Sometimes your hosts have other ideas about what they should be doing instead of what you ask them. So back to the drawing board.

My novel characters are much more interesting than I am, so I asked six of my 15 blog hosts to interview them instead of me. It turned out to be fun. They’re reading pdf downloads of my book and writing questions for my characters to answer. A couple of times I wrote the questions myself because my hosts were too busy to read the book. And that’s fine because who knows my characters better than I do?

Now that everyone has an assignment and is hopefully reading my novel, I’ve received some comments that bolstered my confidence that it might just turn out all right. Because this is my first blog tour, I’m naturally nervous about the outcome and concerned whether anyone will follow the tour. The schedule, by the way, is posted on my website at: http://myblogtour.blogspot.com/ and you’re all invited to stop by to sign my virtual guestbook. (Thanks, Earl, for adding your photo.)

Dani Greer, commander-in-chief of the blogbooktours forum, suggested that we put together a Christmas gift basket relating to our latest book, so here are the contents of mine:

~A copy of my senior sleuth novel, A Village Shattered
~A pair of Polaroid glasses to see through the San Joaquin Valley fog
~A magnifying glass to look for clues
~A neck brace to protect oneself from the serial killer
~A home security system gift certificate
~An extra cell phone to call for help
~A plane ticket to Las Vegas
~Oreo cookies

I would also like to have a book trailer ready in time for the tour but was disappointed by a poorly produced trailer for my historical novel earlier this year. If anyone knows of a trailer producer who does a good job and doesn't charge as though it were a Hollywood production, please let us all know here, or email me at Seniorsleuth@aol.com. Many thanks!